True Love Never Did Run Smooth
by SmileyMiley
Summary: After singing with Gabriella at the ski lodge, Troy gets the idea that she was just to remind him of someone at home. He figures out who it was and shows her that he loves her, but then Gabriella transfers and screws things up. AU, Trelsi.
1. Chapter 1

**_A/N: I'm back!! And with a new story too! This one is different than my first Trelsi story by far._**

**_Background: Troy and Kelsi were best friends throughout elementary and middle school. When they were in seventh grade, Kelsi's mom died. Her family (Consisting of her, her little sisters Melissa and Rachel, her older sister Carmela, and her dad) moved away from the house they'd lived in since Carmela was a baby. Kelsi and Troy started to drift apart. Kelsi became incredibly involved in her music, and Troy in basketball._**

**_Troy and Gabriella still sang at that ski lodge on New Years' Eve. But Gabriella didn't transfer to East High, and Troy gets the feeling that his feelings for Gabriella were really just to remind him of feelings for someone at home._**

**_Disclaimer: I own nuttin'. Not even Carmela and Rachel and Melissa because they're characters from the NPS. Which I am a member of, so I can use the characters._**

Troy Bolton sat in the back seat of the car, his iPod earbuds in his ears. He couldn't stop thinking about the girl he'd sung with the night before. It wasn't her exactly, but he couldn't place what he was thinking about. He bobbed his head to the music in his ears, trying to figure out what it was. As the three of them drove through Colorado back to Albuquerque, he nodded off, still thinking about what he couldn't place.

About forty minutes later, he jolted awake, finally knowing what he'd been thinking about. She reminded him of a girl at school, but that was as far as he got. He still didn't know which girl, or why, or anything. As he sat in the car, staring out the window, he started running the names of girls he knew and knew of through his head.

_Sharpay Evans_: No, the girl from the party --Gabriella-- wasn't like Sharpay at all. Not pushy enough, self-centered enough…just not Sharpay-ish enough.

_Taylor McKessie_: Maybe…Gabriella had struck him as pretty smart, but not as out-there as Taylor. No, Taylor wasn't right either.

The rest of the car ride, Troy ran names through his head. Girls in his homeroom, which included Taylor and Sharpay, girls in all his classes (that he could remember)…but none of the names fit.

The next day, as Troy climbed out of his mom's van at school, he was almost immediately ambushed by his best friend Chad and the rest of the basketball team.

"Hey, dude!" Chad called. Troy rolled his eyes at his best friend.

"Hey, Chad," he said. "How was break?" Chad glanced down at the basketball in his hands and sighed.

"Definitely better than school," he said, frowning. Troy laughed and stole the basketball.

"Now that break is over we can get back to practicing for the championship!" he cried. Everyone around him started cheering and finally moving towards the front door. He let himself be pulled along by the crowd, but he was looking out over the courtyard at all the girls he knew. There were some new faces that he hadn't run through the day before, but none of them seemed right either.

That day, during lunch, he spent about half the period looking at all the different girl faces in the cafeteria. Chad punched him in the shoulder and asked, "Why are you staring at all the girls in here? Trying to find a girlfriend?" Troy shrugged.

"Not really, I guess. Was I staring? I didn't mean to." Chad rolled his eyes.

"Yeah right, dude. You wouldn't be staring at every girl in the cafeteria if you weren't looking for a girlfriend." He got up and threw the stuff on his tray away. Troy followed him, mentally kicking himself for being so obvious.

After dinner, he hung out on the basketball court behind his house. His shots were a little off because he was worried that he was wrong about the girl. Soon enough, his dad came out of the house and took the ball away from him.

"Troy, what's wrong with you today? You didn't want to talk at dinner, and now your shots are off. What's up?" Troy shrugged, not wanting to tell his dad about what had happened.

"I'm not sure, Dad. Back to school after break, it's a little hard because I'm used to waking up whenever I want to and stuff like that. I'll be fine tomorrow." Mr. Bolton looked wary, but he went back inside the house. Troy sighed with relief.

The next day went pretty much the same way at school, excluding Chad's comments at lunch. He just ignored Troy inability to stop staring around the cafeteria and talked to the others at the basketball table. Troy was grateful, but staring around gave him no results again.

During science, his second-to-last class of the day, he decided that maybe he was wrong. Maybe Gabriella hadn't reminded him of anyone at school. Maybe she was just Gabriella, and she was the one he was supposed to like.

He dismissed that idea immediately, deciding that he couldn't really like her because they'd only talked for about five minutes. And half of that had been the singing!

Sighing, he cradled his chin in his hand, with his elbow resting on the counter. Taylor McKessie, who was sitting across from him, rolled her eyes. He noticed, and it reminded him again that it couldn't be Taylor that he was thinking of. At the moment, something clicked in his head.

"Kelsi!" he cried. The pieces all fit: kind of shy, and when he'd been friends with Kelsi before, she had always loved anything to do with music. Troy suddenly realized that he'd closed his eyes. Opening them, he looked right into Taylor's disapproving face.

"Troy, why did you just scream Kelsi's name?" she asked. "Because now Kelsi is incredibly confused, just like the rest of us." Troy looked around the room. His eyes fell on a very confused-looking girl in the middle of the room.

"Kelsi?" he asked in a normal voice. She nodded. He groaned at himself, not remembering that she was in at least one of his classes. "I'm sorry…I didn't mean to say your name like that. Just ignore me, everyone…and go back to whatever you were doing." Taylor took his statement literally and rolled her eyes at Troy again.

At the end of class, Troy waited until most people had left and walked over to Kelsi. She was still shoving things into her overcrowded backpack, which he could see was filled with sheet music. "Hey, Kelsi," he said quietly.

She looked up at him. He'd forgotten how short she'd always been. "Hey, Troy," she answered. She went back to trying to shove her science book into her bag. "What do you need?" He shrugged, knowing she didn't see him.

"Nothing. I just wanted to tell you that I was sorry for screaming out your name in the middle of class." She looked back up at him, her book finally in far enough for her to close the zipper.

"Do you know why you did it?" she asked. He shook his head. "Oh. Just wondering. Well, now I've got to get to German. Bye, Troy." Kelsi headed out the door and turned left, toward the foreign-language classes. Troy hurried after her. Watching her make her way through the sea of people, he smiled.

"Kelsi Nielsen. That's it," he whispered.


	2. Chapter 2

**_A/N: Yeah, a second chapter within minutes of the first. That's because I kept forgetting to post this on here. And I wrote this chapter over this weekend, to take my mind off my sore back. I want to post it ASAP, which means now._**

**_Disclaimer: KELSI NIELSEN--Not unless Mr. Fulton is suddenly blonde and wears designer flip-flops._**

The next day, Troy tried to figure out Kelsi's schedule as best he could. He realized that she, too, was in his homeroom, which gave him a bit of an edge on figuring out her classes. He watched her walk towards the band room in the morning. She had band first hour, drama second. She had free period at the same time as he did, third hour. She was in Algebra II fourth hour, when he had Spanish. She had English fifth hour while he had American History, and then they switched for sixth. They had science together seventh hour, and then she went to German and he went to Algebra II.

He had a pretty good idea of where she'd be during free period, and he was in the band room when she got there, which earned him a confused glace.

"What are you doing in here, Troy?" Kelsi asked. "Don't you have basketball practice during free period?" He nodded, surprised she remembered.

"I'm skipping out today. I wanted to visit an old friend, and tell you I'm sorry again for screaming out your name in science yesterday," he mumbled, glancing around the tiny room that was mostly filled with the grand piano that Kelsi was sitting at. She tapped his wrist, wanting him to look at her.

"Do you have any idea why you did it?" she asked. "I know I asked yesterday, but I'd still really like to know." Troy looked into her greenish-gray eyes and all thoughts left his head. It was all he could do to string a few words together.

"Umm, umm…I…" Kelsi cocked her head, her eyes laughing. This caused the tiny thoughts that had begun to re-form in his head to dissipate again. "You're so…so beau…beautiful," he stammered out.

She jerked her hand away from his, her eyes flashing. "Yeah right!" She pulled her backpack off the floor and slung it over her shoulder. "I thought maybe you did want to be friends again. I can't believe I was so naïve!" She stomped towards the door.

"I wonder which of your lunkhead basketball buddies put you up to this! Hey Troy, go make fun of that geeky drama girl you used to be friends with in middle school! See how fun it is!" Kelsi slammed the door behind her, trying to hide the tears streaming down her face. She really had thought Troy wanted to be friends with her again.

"Man, I really have to learn to be a high-schooler," she mumbled, pushing her way through the crowd of girls outside the bathroom. Looking in the mirror, she sighed. Her face was red and splotchy, her glasses covered in tiny droplets of water. Pulling a wad of paper towels out of the dispenser, she washed her face, still trying to stop crying and wondering why she couldn't.

Back in the band room, Troy was sitting on the floor, mentally kicking himself. He knew Kelsi was shy, he knew she wouldn't be like one of the popular who would kill for the chance for him to say they were beautiful. Near the end of free period, when he realized that he finally had to get himself off his butt and to Spanish, he decided that he's show her that it wasn't a trick. Hurrying out of the room, he tried to figure out where Kelsi might be. It was going to be a little harder than earlier, because she hadn't gone back to the band room. Deciding to take a chance, Troy headed off towards her Algebra II class, hoping she'd gone there early.

She had. She was sitting in one of the chairs near the back, not giving him much chance of slipping in and talking to her without being noticed. Even still, he took another chance, deciding he didn't care if her teacher saw him in the wrong class.

"Kelsi," he whispered when he was kneeling next to her desk. Kelsi looked down at him for a second, then turned away. But that second was all it took for him to see that her amazing green-gray eyes were full of hurt. He instantly regretted everything all over again.

"Kelsi, I didn't mean to hurt you like that. I know I went a little too fast…" She cocked her head again, giving him a sarcastic look. His thoughts threatened to disappear again. "Okay, a lot too fast. But can we just trying be friends? I guess I'm getting tired of the only people paying attention to me being cheerleaders or basketball teammates. Deal?" Kelsi glanced into his sky-blue eyes. They were so familiar and comforting. She remembered how much he'd helped her before. She nodded.

"Deal. Now get to your next class before the bell rings." He nodded and stood up, nearly skipping out of the room.

After school, having dealt with another day of Sharpay Evans stalking him, Troy was more than ready to meet Kelsi and just talk. She came out of the building, trying to keep her backpack from spilling open. Troy hurried over, grabbing her Algebra II and German books from her overcrowded hands. She smiled, the last of the hurt from earlier still lingering in her eyes, giving them a haunting look. Troy shivered. Kelsi laughed.

"What's wrong with you? Every time I look at you, you make some involuntary movement or your face goes completely blank, like every thought in your head disappeared. Why is that?" Tearing his eyes away from her face, he shrugged.

"I have no idea. Now, what do you want to do today? I don't have much homework, as it's only the third day back. What about you?" She shrugged.

"I've only got math and German, and not much of either. But on Wednesdays I usually go to this place called "Kids With The Music" with my little sister Rachel. We work with a bunch of disabled kids, helping them with different musical instruments and things like that. Rachel's school bus drops her off from the middle school, but I have to drive over. Do you want to come?" Troy thought about it for a second and decided he'd go anywhere with Kelsi. He nodded.

"Sure. My mom dropped me off again this morning, so I don't have a car with me. Would you be willing to take me and drop me off after, kind lady?" Kelsi cracked up.

"Sure, Troy," she laughed, piling her stuff into the back seat of her silver Volkswagen Bug. Troy threw his backpack in as well and climbed into the front seat. They joked as they drove, both remembering old times when they'd been in middle school, next-door neighbors, and best friends. When they finally got to the building, Troy didn't want to get out and share his time with Kelsi. Holding those feelings in, he hopped out of the car and hurried around to the driver's side, pulling open her door for her. Kelsi climbed out, looking stunned.

"Since when does Troy Bolton open doors for girls, especially if we're just at a place where that girl works?" she asked him, her eyes laughing. He nearly died again looking in her beautiful eyes. Shaking it off, he laughed.

"Since now, I guess," he said, shutting the door behind her. They walked in together, but Kelsi almost immediately turned down a hallway as if she'd forgotten that Troy was there. He called her name, and it took her a while to turn back around. She blushed.

"I'm sorry, Troy, it's just that I love coming here so much that I forget what I was originally doing. You can come with me today; I work with a girl with Down syndrome who's really good at guitar." She hurried back down the hallway, Troy following closely behind, his head reeling. _Guitar_? She played guitar as well? Not just piano? He shook his head, remembering that Kelsi loved anything to do with music; she'd probably play as many instruments as possible.

As he entered the room, the first thing he noticed was the wide range of instruments strewn around it. A flute lay across the top of the piano, a trumpet case lay open on the floor…he looked up at Kelsi and another girl sitting on a bench near the window, both holding guitars. Troy slid a pile of sheet music off of a chair and sat down, watching Kelsi work with the smaller girl, who really was good. He could never remember how long he sat there, but before long someone was tapping his shoulder. Turning his head, he came face-to-face with an even shorter version of Kelsi with snapping blue eyes. She smiled.

"Hi, I'm Rachel, Kelsi's sister. And you are?" she asked. He shook his head, trying to knock some thoughts back in.

"I'm Troy Bolton. I go to school with Kelsi," he said, watching her reaction. What happened wasn't what he expected at all. Most middle-school girls who met him freaked. Rachel was just the opposite.

"Oh, that's cool. We used to live next to you, didn't we? I remember that!" She ran over to Kelsi and the other girl, her smile just growing.

"Hi Jessie!" she said to the other girl. "How's the music going today?" Jessie's already happy face lit up when she saw Rachel. Troy was amazed, both by Rachel's blow-off reaction to him and how the sisters connected with each other and with Jessie. A few minutes later (or maybe an hour, again, Troy wasn't sure) Rachel tapped him on the shoulder again and said it was time to go. He followed her out to Kelsi's Bug, where Rachel slithered into the backseat in two seconds flat, surprising him again.

On the way to Troy's house, the three of them laughed and joked just like they used to. Rachel remembered living next to Troy too, she just hadn't been able to remember his face because she'd only been in fourth grade the last time she'd seen him. When the got to his house, Rachel handed his things up from the back seat and climbed out as well.

"If I don't have to sit in the back of that thing, I'm not going to," she smiled, making everyone laugh. Troy waved as he unlocked the door and walked in. As Kelsi drove away, Rachel started laughing hysterically.

"What is up with you today, Rachel?" Kelsi asked watching her giggle-encompassed sister from the corner of her eye. Rachel shook her head and kept on laughing.

"You really are blind, aren't you?" she asked. Kelsi cocked her head.

"What are you talking about?" Kelsi asked, confused. Rachel rolled her eyes.

"Troy Bolton likes you, idiot!"


End file.
